Friday, October 08, 2010

When women want out-of-hospital maternity care, they deserve legal
access to midwives trained to provide it. In 23 states, Washington D.C.,
Puerto Rico, and Guam, Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) face
prosecution for serving women who have decided not to give birth in a
hospital. Families in these states are forced into an underground
economy of providers whose training and credentials could be difficult
to ascertain, and are left without any means to report a practitioner
who lacks adequate skills. If they do opt to hire a midwife who is
practicing illegally, smooth and efficient transfer to a higher level of
care can be compromised in the event that it becomes necessary, putting
mothers and babies at risk. That’s why more and more states, pushed by
consumers and their allies who are part of The Big Push for Midwives
Campaign, are passing legislation to license CPMs.

Aggressive, well funded forces
of organized medicine seem determined to keep Certified Professional
Midwives underground. This includes the American Congress of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Medical Association (AMA),
organizations that wield their reputations and considerable financial
influence over state legislators.

The medical journal The Lancet recently published an editorial
that concluded “Women have the right to choose how and where to give
birth, but they do not have the right to put their baby at risk.” This
is a familiar message to reproductive health activists: women don’t have
the right to value our own lives when babies are involved. And, if the
opinion of a doctor or judge about the wisdom of a particular woman’s
choice for maternity care differs from her own, she may be forced to
accept medical treatment that she doesn’t want or need.

Punitive attacks on women’s rights in birth are not the sole province
of the medical establishment. Child protective
services in Illinois and Ohio have seized custody of newborns of women who chose home birth with midwifery
care - even though the babies born at home were perfectly healthy.
Families have lost custody of their children or faced CPS investigations
simply because the mother gave birth at home with a midwife in a state
where her legislators have failed to regulate and license Certified
Professional Midwives.

Whether or not state legislatures respect the wishes of their
constituents and vote to legalize CPMs, women will continue to choose
home birth. This is why licensing and integrating CPMs, trained and
experienced experts in out-of-hospital birth, makes sense for American
women.

When McDonald's recalled 12 million "Shrek"
beverage glasses in June because the designs contained cadmium,
consumers were told the glasses weren't toxic but were being recalled
out of an abundance of caution.

Regulators wouldn't disclose the amount of cadmium in the glasses.

But recently released regulatory records show that the recall was
spurred after government scientists concluded a 6-year-old could be
exposed to hazardous levels of the carcinogen after touching one of the
glasses eight times in a day.

Oak Brook,
Ill.-based McDonald's and the company that manufactured the glasses,
ARC International of Millville, N.J., insist the products are safe.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said it stands behind the
recall but indicated that scientists might use different standards for
future recalls. The regulatory agency is expected to announce new
cadmium standards this month to address concerns about the heavy metal
in consumer products.

In addition to the Shrek glasses, children's jewelry has been recalled for cadmium, but at much higher levels.

Toys are the only children's product that have a standard for cadmium —
75 soluble parts per million in paint and coatings. But many products,
including the Shrek glasses and jewelry, are not considered toys.

Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the regulatory agency, wouldn't say if
the new standard would be above or below the cadmium levels found in the
McDonald's glasses. The glasses are still considered non-toxic because a
child wouldn't get sick simply from touching one. The health concerns
are centered on long-term exposure to cadmium.

Cadmium is a carcinogen that also damages kidneys, lungs
and bones. The soft metal is used in paint and batteries. It's also in
fertilizers, which means it ends up in soil and whatever grows in that
soil. Humans take in most cadmium through their diet, especially leafy
greens. Cadmium is also in cigarettes. There is no established amount of
cadmium that is considered safe or unsafe for kids, but health
officials and scientists worry about cadmium building up in the body
over time.

"Making sure that children don't take in excess cadmium beyond the diet
is a wise thing to do," said Jeffrey Weidenhamer, a professor of
chemistry at Ashland University in Ohio.

Documents show that the agency chose an amount of 0.03 micrograms per
kilogram of body weight for an "acceptable daily intake level."

That is about one-third the amount that is considered safe by the Agency
for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry. The amount is not specific
to children, however.

Government scientists performed a "wipe" test on the Shrek glasses that
was meant to simulate a child touching a glass. They moistened a paper
or cloth wipe and rubbed the decal 10 times to see how much cadmium
rubbed off. This was done three times on each glass and cadmium on the
wipes was added up. The glass with the highest total of cadmium had
about 15.83 micrograms.

Scientists made calculations about how much cadmium children might
swallow if they licked their hands or touched food after handling the
glass, which led to the estimate that eight strokes of the glass could
cause a child to take in a hazardous amount of cadmium.

The Society of Glass and Ceramic Decorated Products, a trade association
representing manufacturers and decorators, did its own testing that
found none of the glasses leached detectable levels of cadmium. The
glasses were washed before the test, however, and the decal was not
wiped as many times as in the government's tests.

Fred Dohn, CEO of Americas for Arc International, which manufactured the
glasses, said the enamels that are used for the decorative part of the
glass are essentially melted into the glass. Cadmium is a must to make
certain colors.

Dohn said his company complied with standards to keep the cadmium away from the lip of the cup.

Gum disease can
be safely treated during pregnancy and appears to significantly reduce
the risk of premature birth associated with periodontal disease,
Pennsylvania researchers report.

"The present study has
potential implications" for the calculations dentists make when deciding
whether to treat gum disease during pregnancy, they write in the
British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Gum
disease - typically caused by a bacterial infection that deteriorates
gum tissue and leaves it chronically inflamed - is a particular problem
during pregnancy. Hormonal changes appear to make a pregnant woman more
susceptible to developing it, yet the standard tetracycline-based
therapy is not recommended because of its risk to the baby.

Nevertheless, considerable evidence points to gum disease itself raising the risk of premature birth.Dr.
Marjorie Jeffcoat of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Dental
Medicine and her colleagues wanted to know if treating pregnant women
with periodontal disease using non-drug methods would reduce their risk
of early delivery.

The group
recruited 322 pregnant women with gum disease for the study.
Participants were randomly assigned to receive active treatment in the
form of an aggressive teeth-cleaning method -- known as scaling and
planning -- plus oral hygiene education, or to get oral hygiene
education alone. (After delivery of their babies, all study participants
were offered treatment for their gum disease).

At
the study's conclusion, the researchers found no statistically
significant difference in the number of premature births among the women
who had been treated and the ones who were not. Of the untreated women,
52.4 percent delivered early, while 45.6 percent of women getting
treatment had early births.On
closer analysis, however, treatment -- when it was successful in curing
the gum disease -- appeared to reduce the likelihood of an early
delivery considerably; "a very exciting finding," Jeffcoat said.

Among
the women in the treatment group, 42 were treated successfully, meaning
that on a second dental exam, their gum inflammation had disappeared
and the separation of their gums from the teeth had not progressed any
further. One hundred and eleven women in the treatment group continued
to show signs of gum disease, representing unsuccessful treatment.

Just
four of the 42 successfully treated women, or 10.5 percent, delivered
prematurely compared to 69 premature deliveries, or 62 percent, among
the 111 women who failed treatment.

"It's
not enough to treat periodontal disease, however," Jeffcoat told
Reuters Health. "The treatment must be 'successful' and why the scaling
and planing treatment was successful in some women and not others isn't
known yet."Source

Thursday, October 07, 2010

New research confirms that women plagued by morning sickness in early pregnancy are less likely to miscarry.

But women who don't experience nausea and vomiting during their first
trimester shouldn't be alarmed, Dr. Ronna L. Chan of The University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of the study's authors, told Reuters
Health.

"Not all pregnant women who go on to have successful pregnancies
experience nausea and vomiting early on or at all," she said by e-mail.
"In addition, pregnancy symptoms can vary from one pregnancy to the
next, even for the same woman."
From 50 percent to 90 percent of women have morning sickness in early
pregnancy, Chan and her team note in the journal Human Reproduction,
and previous studies have found that women who have these symptoms are
less likely to miscarry.

To investigate the relationship in more detail, Chan and her
colleagues looked not only at the presence or absence of these symptoms,
but how long the symptoms lasted, in more than 2,400 women living in
three US cities.

"Our study had several advantages over some of the earlier studies
because we recruited pregnant women very early in their pregnancies or
when they were trying to become pregnant, so we were able to follow them
over the course of their pregnancies and collect data regarding the
timing and occurrence of nausea and vomiting early on," the researcher
explained.

Eighty-nine percent of the women had some degree of morning sickness,
while 53 percent had vomiting as well as nausea. Eleven percent of the
women miscarried before 20 weeks.

The women who had no nausea or vomiting during their first trimester
were 3.2 times as likely to miscarry as the women who did have morning
sickness, Chan and her team found.

This relationship was particularly strong for older women; women
younger than 25 who had no morning sickness were four times as likely to
miscarry compared to their peers who had nausea and vomiting, while
miscarriage risk was increased nearly 12-fold for women 35 and older
with no morning sickness.
And the longer a woman had these symptoms, the lower her miscarriage
risk, the researchers found; this association was especially strong
among older women. Women 35 and older who had morning sickness for at
least half of their pregnancy were 80 percent less likely to miscarry
than women in this age group who didn't have these symptoms.

Still, because of the nature of the study, the authors could not
prove that there was any cause-effect relationship between morning
sickness and a healthier pregnancy, just that the two were linked.

A number of theories have been put forth to explain why morning
sickness might signal a healthier pregnancy, Chan said. "Some postulate
nausea and vomiting during pregnancy is a mechanism to help improve the
quality of a pregnant woman's diet or a way to reduce or eliminate
potentially harmful substances from the mother in order to protect the
fetus," she explained.

While these ideas are "plausible," the researcher said, she thinks
the symptoms reflect a pregnant woman's sensitivity to the sharp rise in
certain hormones key for sustaining pregnancy that occurs during the
first trimester.

Internet security firm AVG
recently did a study on the digital information available for the
youngest citizens of some of the world's most wired (or, really today,
wireless) countries, including the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France,
Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The finding?
More babies are becoming as visible on the Internet as those who can
actually operate a keyboard.

Here are the startling digital milestones:

--
Nearly one-fourth (23 percent) of children were found to have had
pre-birth scans uploaded to the Internet. In the U.S., some 34 percent
had antenatal scans posted online.

--
The average age at which a child acquires an online presence, courtesy
of the parents, is six months. By the time they are 2, 81 percent of
children have some kind of "digital footprint."

-- A third (33 percent) of children have had images posted online from birth.

-- A quarter (23 percent) of children have had their pre-birth scans uploaded to the Internet by their parents.

-- Seven percent of babies even had an e-mail address created for them by their parents.

-- More than 70 percent of mothers said they posted baby and toddler images online to share with friends and family.

Unfortunately, Facebook's dodgy history
with privacy is well documented, and a 2-year-old can hardly be counted
on to make an informed review of the default privacy settings.

There are holdouts, however. According to the Pew Internet Project,
even in Facebook-happy America about a quarter of people aged 12 to 17
don't use social networking, and that number rises to about 60 percent
for adults 30 and older. Still, this study indicates that these numbers
will likely rise as new generations grow up locked into the Internet.

AVG
stresses that parents should be very considerate of the life they're
dictating for their children by putting their lives online so early, and
should always remember to track privacy settings.

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Alanis Morissette wears a cute lace top and a blazer, Ali Larter wears a black form-fitting lace dress, Alicia Keys is gorgeous in gray, Miranda Kerr walked the runway but earlier was dressed down in a black blazer and black booties, and Penelope Cruz wears layers and boots for a casual fall look.

Pregnant women who have up to two alcoholic drinks per week do not harm their children, a U.K. study shows.

More than 11,500 children and their mothers were included in the
study. Mothers were first asked about their alcohol use when the kids
were 9 months old. The children were last given a battery of behavioral
and cognitive tests when they were 5 years of age.
Women were defined as light drinkers if they had no more than one
or two drinks a week. A drink was defined as a very small glass of
wine, a half pint of beer, or a small single measure of spirits, says
study researcher Yvonne Kelly, PhD, of University College London.

"Our results suggest that children born to mothers who drank at
low levels were not at any risk of social or emotional difficulties or
any risk of emotional
impairments compared to mothers who did not
drink," Kelly tells WebMD.

"But that is a world away from recommending that expectant mothers should drink," Kelly is quick to add.
Indeed, many of the women included in the "light drinkers" group had no more than a drink or two during their entire pregnancy.

In the U.K., women are advised not to drink at all during the first trimester of their pregnancy and to drink no more than a drink or two a week after that.

In the U.S., pregnant women are strongly advised not to drink at
all, says Eva Pressman, MD, director of maternal/fetal medicine at the
University of Rochester, N.Y.

Pressman points out that women who are light drinkers during
pregnancy tend to be from households with relatively high incomes.
Children in high-income households tend to perform better on behavioral
and cognitive tests -- which could mask some possible harms from their
mothers' light drinking during pregnancy.
"What we tell women is that we don't know of a safe threshold for
drinking alcohol during pregnancy. So our recommendation is not to
consume any alcohol at all," Pressman tells WebMD.

The Kelly study appears in the Oct. 5 online issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

If you've seen the movie Meet the Fockers, Christa Anderson's
baby feeding invention may sound strangely familiar to you: a
baby-feeding device that is worn by a parent or grandparent in an
attempt to simulate the experience of breastfeeding. (In the hit comedy,
Jack Byrnes, played by Robert DeNiro, invents an artificial breast so
he can "nurse" his grandson Little Jack. He calls his product the The
Mannary Gland.)

It wasn’t until after the Lower
Sackville, N.S., mother of one had already invented Nurse Me Tender that
she heard about The Mannary Gland. After watching Meet the Fockers,
she concluded that her product, which features a custom-designed baby
bottle and matching holster and a wearable body harness, was superior in
design to the product the comedy geniuses in Hollywood had dreamed up.

Early in the product development
process, Anderson ditched the idea of incorporating anything bra-like
into her design, feeling that a baby-feeding device that reminded
potential buyers of Frank Costanza and Cosmo Kramer’s Manziere would
kill sales to the crucial dad and grandpa markets. (View the product
prototype at nursemetender.com, where Anderson is tweeting about her journey as a first-time inventor.)

Nurse Me Tender was inspired by
Anderson’s own experiences as a mother. When she stopped breastfeeding
son Anderson at 10 months, she found she missed the intimacy and the
convenience of breastfeeding. “I felt very awkward and uncomfortable
bottlefeeding after breastfeeding—really restrained.”
That’s a comment Teresa Pitman, spokesperson for La Leche League Canada
and the co-author of numerous bestselling books about breastfeeding,
hears time and time again. “I talk quite often to mothers who weaned and
were disappointed by the results of the weaning. Pretty much any other
way of feeding your baby is going to mean more work for you.” And forget
those rumours about how you’ll have all kinds of extra freedom once you
stop breastfeeding, she adds: “Your baby is still going to want you.
Breastfeeding means more to babies than food."

So what are the odds of a product
like NurseMeTender finding a market and making money for its inventor?
“I tell clients that for every one that gets a patent, 99 will not be a
commercial success,” says inventor and registered patent agent James
Gastle of Gastle and Associates of Lakefield, Ont.

And what do mothers and those who work with them have to say about a product that attempts to mimic breastfeeding?

"I am always intrigued by products
that attempt to make the experience of drinking from a bottle more like
breastfeeding. However, I am also wary of them because I think they are
often a marketing gimmick intended to convince moms to buy one product
over another without any specific reason (like the infant formulas that
claim to be 'closest to breastmilk')," says Annie Urban, mother of two
and author of the popular parenting blog PhD in Parenting (phdinparenting.com).

Sam Leeson, founder of BabyREADY
(babyready.ca), a Toronto-based company that helps families prepare for
baby’s arrival, is concerned about the way the product positions the
baby in relation to the mother: “The product pushes baby further away
from mom’s body than traditional bottlefeeding.” Pitman of La Leche
League echoes that concern, noting that a mother who wants to enjoy an
experience that feels like breastfeeding can strip baby down to his
diaper, take off her shirt and feed baby skin-to-skin.

“The intention of the product is
good, but I don’t think it’s really necessary,” says Desiree Kretschmar,
a Peterborough mother of one, and author of the popular motherhood blog
So Fawned.

“I don’t really see the value
immediately in this product, because I think it is possible to bottle
‘nurse’ a baby without having the bottle on a harness that is attached
to your body,” says Urban. “The only time I would see a product like
this being useful would be in the case of a parent with a disability who
could not hold both the baby and the bottle at the same time.”

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

There is a great organization world wide focused on supporting
mothers through their experience, and lowering the cesarean section
rate. It is called The International Cesarean Awareness Network, or also known as ICAN.. A great piece of information that ICAN has put out
through their educational white papers is an article on having a family centered cesarean.
It offers a lot of great advice for women who want to make the
experience more pleasant in the case that it does become medically
necessary.

Become Familiar with the Procedure
Learn more about a cesarean section, what they will be doing, the
reason you need to have a surgical delivery, and this also gives you the
time to get a second opinion if it is not something you may agree with.
The more knowledge you have, and the more research you do, helps to
make you a more educated consumer.

Write a Birth Plan
Contrary to popular belief, you can still have a birth plan when
having a surgical delivery, even if it may not be planned. Always talk
to your provider before labor to know if they will support your ideas
and what you would like for your delivery, cesarean or not. If they do
not support, or accept the ideas you have for your care, and birth
experience, look for a new provider. Having an unsupportive provider
can make for a horrible experience in some cases.

Discuss the type of anesthesia you would like to use and weigh out
risks and benefits of an epidural vs. a spinal block, and the type of
pain management after the delivery that would work best for you.

Talk about your options for holding your baby while they repair your
uterus and during the closure. Typically hospitals do not offer this,
but many will allow it if the mother requests it before hand. This can
help mothers to feel more connected to their newborn in the case that
mother and baby are healthy enough to partake in the activity.

Get Help Post Cesarean
A big help to women who have had a cesarean, whether it is their
first or third is having help around the house when they go home. From
laundry, to helping with older children or even the new baby, you will
need all the help you can get. One mistake mothers often try to make in
their first days home is doing it all instead of asking for help. In the
first 2 weeks, your recovery is incredibly important, and you should
take time for yourself, and focus on your recovery, and your little one.

This help can come in the form of family members, friends, or even a postpartum doula.
While cesarean sections are not the ideal birth experience for many
of us, there sometimes will be the need for them. Making the situation,
and experience more pleasant can help in the long run to prevent
negative feelings, or trauma.

It's flu-shot season, and new
research released Monday shows that babies whose mothers were vaccinated
during pregnancy were less likely to get the flu or to be hospitalized
with respiratory illnesses in their first six months of life. At
risk is the baby who's born during cold and flu season when people are
cloistered indoors, sneezing and coughing on one another. Infants can't
be vaccinated against flu until their six-month birthday, yet young kids
are at greater risk of flu-related complications. Although babies
younger than six months don't seem to come down with the flu as often as
older babies, in severe flu seasons, death rates among infants younger
than six months are greater than those associated with older babies.

"Because they're small and their lungs are small and their immune
systems are immature, they're quite vulnerable," says lead researcher
Kate O'Brien, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at the Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Very vulnerable infants
don't have a good vaccination strategy."But now they do: their vaccinated moms, who convey maternal influenza antibodies via the placenta and through breast milk.

The new research, posted online, is slated to be published in the February 2011 issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
O'Brien and her colleagues zeroed in on Navajo and White Mountain
Apache Indian reservations, where children typically contract more
severe respiratory infections than the general population.

They studied 1,169 women who delivered babies during one of three
influenza seasons and took blood samples from 1,160 mother-infant pairs.
After crunching the numbers, they found that infants whose mothers were
vaccinated had a 41% lower risk of a confirmed flu infection and a 39%
reduced risk of hospitalization from flu-like illness. Blood analyses
revealed that babies whose moms had gotten a flu shot had higher levels
of flu antibodies at birth — and at 2 to 3 months — than babies of
unvaccinated mothers.

Pregnant women, experts say, should routinely opt for a flu shot. In
September, a coalition of public-health groups including the March of
Dimes, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists called for pregnant women to be
vaccinated as a matter of course. "Based on expert medical opinion, we
urge all pregnant women, and women who expect to become pregnant, to get
their influenza immunization because the flu poses a serious risk of
illness and death during pregnancy," says Jennifer Howse, president of
the March of Dimes, in a news release.

Other studies,
such as one from Emory University in Atlanta, have found that
vaccinated women were 72% less likely to have a premature baby than
those who did not receive the vaccine during a rampant flu season. And
last year's H1N1 pandemic highlighted the vulnerability of pregnant
women to influenza. The H1N1 flu strain disproportionately infected expectant mothers, proving fatal in some cases. Although only 1% of the U.S. population is pregnant at any given time, pregnant women accounted for about 6% of confirmed H1N1 2009 influenza deaths. Yet more than a few pregnant women were skeptical of the brand-new vaccine and chose not to get immunized.

“Maternal influenza vaccination targets two high-risk groups with one
vaccine dose — we can't afford not to act,” wrote Justin Ortiz and
Kathleen Neuzil, doctors at the University of Washington, in an
editorial that accompanied O'Brien's research.

The baby should start the feed soon after birth - within the first half an hour.

After the mother has assumed a position comfortable for her, she can
nestle the baby in a cradle hold (cradling the baby with the mother's
arm on the same side as the breast being presented). The baby's body
should be on its side, so that the baby does not have to turn his or her
head to reach the nipple.

First, manually express a few drops of milk to moisten the nipple.

Cup the breast with your hand and using the milk-moistened
nipple, gently massage baby’s lips, encouraging the baby to open its
mouth.

When the baby’s mouth is opened, the nipple is inserted into the
centre of the baby’s mouth while pulling the baby in very close. The
baby’s gums should take in at least a one-inch radius of the areola.

The mother may have to make adjustments for the baby’s breathing
by changing the angle of baby’s position slightly or using the thumb to
press gently on the breast to uncover the baby’s nose.

Hold the breast throughout the feeding so the weight of your breast does not tire your newborn’s mouth.

When feeding is over, to avoid trauma to your nipples, do not
pull your nipple from baby’’s mouth without first breaking the suction
by inserting your finger into the corner of baby’s mouth.

Clogged milk ducts may appear as small, red, tender lumps within the
breast. Milk ducts may become clogged with dried milk or other
material. The goal of treatment is opening these blocked ducts. This can
be aided by increasing the breastfeeding frequency and offering the
affected breast first, as well as pumping the breast after breastfeeding
if the baby is not emptying the breast.

Moist heat packs can be applied to the affected area to increase
blood flow and healing. A warm shower and massaging of the area may also
enhance resolution of this problem.

Sometimes, the baby will refuse the affected breast because the milk
develops a sour taste. Pump the breast and empty it as well as
possible. Continue to offer that breast to the baby until the accepts
the affected breast again.

Sore nipples can be relieved by exposing the nipples to the air as
much as possible. Using a hair dryer on a low setting to dry nipples
after breastfeeding may also provide relief. Nipples should be washed
only with water, never with soap, alcohol, benzoin, or premoistened
towelettes. Petroleum-based ointments and other cosmetic preparations
should not be used, but unmedicated lanolin may help alleviate nipple
cracking.

It is important to call your health-care provider if the above
techniques do not alleviate the problem, or if you develop serious
symptoms such as fever or signs of mastitis (a breast inflammation that
may be caused by an infection). Symptoms of mastitis include increasing
pain in the breast, fever, chills, sweats, breast swelling and/or
hardness, and redness of the skin over the affected area. A delay in
treating mastitis could lead to a more severe infection and possible
breast abscess.

Monday, October 04, 2010

Tea bags for sore nipples: Dip tea bags in warm (not boiling) water, squeeze
most of the water out of them, and then tuck them into a nursing bra
with a breast pad.

Fenugreek for milk supply: This tea, often called "Mother's Tea," is a very mild substance that increases milk supply.
Some women find that drinking several cups a day is all that's needed to
boost their supply.

Tea as a diet-friendly drink with the diet: Tea is
calorie-free unless you add sweetener or milk. If you've got a few pounds of baby weight that you're staring down every day, drinking
tea can be a satisfying, calorie-free beverage with the diet chemicals.

It's a good substitute for coffee: Most
breastfeeding mothers can, and want to, drink caffeine in moderation. A
cup of Green Tea has less caffeine than coffee, so there is less of it
for you to transfer to your baby through your breast milk.

How do three kids with the same parents, living in the same house,
develop such distinct personalities? A key reason seems to be birth
order. Many experts believe that a child's place in the family is
intertwined with the hobbies he chooses, the grades he'll earn in
school, and how much money he'll make as an adult. "For siblings, the
differences in many aspects of personality are about as great as they
would be between a brother and a sister," says Frank Sulloway, Ph.D.,
author of “Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative
Lives.” Birth order isn’t the only factor that contributes to how a kid
turns out, but giving it consideration can help you understand your
kids’ personalities — so you can help them succeed in their own unique
ways.

The firstbornFamous firstborns: Zac Efron, Beyonce Knowles, Dakota Fanning Innate strengths: The firstborn is often used to
being the center of attention; he has Mom and Dad to himself before
siblings arrive (and oldest children enjoy about 3,000 more hours of
quality time with their parents between ages 4 and 13 than the next
sibling will get, found a study from Brigham Young University in Provo,
UT). “Many parents spend more time reading and explaining things to
firstborns. It’s not as easy when other kids come into the picture,”
says Frank Farley, Ph.D., a psychologist at Temple University in
Philadelphia, who has studied personality and human development for
decades. “That undivided attention may have a lot to do with why
firstborns tend to be overachievers,” he explains. In addition to
usually scoring higher on IQ tests and generally getting more education
than their brothers and sisters, firstborns tend to outearn their
siblings (firstborns were more likely to make at least $100,000 annually
compared with their siblings, according to a recent Careerbuilder.com
survey).

Common challenges: Success comes with a price:
Firstborns tend to be type A personalities who never cut themselves any
slack. “They often have an intense fear of failure, so nothing they
accomplish feels good enough,” says Michelle P. Maidenberg, Ph.D., a
child and family therapist in White Plains, NY. And because they dread
making a misstep, oldest kids tend to stick to the straight and narrow;
“They’re typically inflexible — they don’t like change and are hesitant
to step out of their comfort zone,” she explains.
In addition, because firstborns are often given a lot of
responsibility at home — whether it’s helping with chores or watching
over younger siblings — they can be quick to take charge (and can be
bossy when they do). That burden can lead to excess stress for a child
who already feels pressure to be perfect.

Necessary nurturing: Firstborns are constantly
receiving encouragement for their achievements, but they also need to
know it’s okay if they don’t succeed at everything, says psychologist
Kevin Lerman, Ph.D., author of “The Birth Order Book.” So tell your
eldest about that time you didn’t make the cheerleading squad or got
fired from your first job — any situation in which you tried something
and it didn’t work out exactly as you planned. Be sure to emphasize why
it was okay in the end and how you learned from your mistakes. You want
her to see that making a few of her own is nothing to worry about and
can actually be a good thing.

The youngestFamous youngest kids: Cameron Diaz, Prince Harry, Blake Lively Innate strengths: Lastborns generally aren’t the
strongest or smartest in the room, so they develop their own ways of
winning attention. They’re natural charmers with an outgoing, social
personality; no surprise then that many famous actors and comedians are
the baby of the family (Stephen Colbert is the youngest of 11!), or that
they score higher in “agreeableness” on personality tests than
firstborns, according to Dr. Sulloway’s research.

Youngest also make a play for the spotlight with their
adventurousness. Free-spirited lastborns are more open to unconventional
experiences and taking physical risks than their siblings (research has
shown that they’re more likely to play sports like football and soccer
than their older siblings, who preferred activities like track and
tennis).

Common challenges: Youngests are known for feeling
that “nothing I do is important,” Dr. Lerman notes. “None of their
accomplishments seem original. Their siblings have already learned to
talk, read, and ride a bike. So parents react with less spontaneous joy
at their accomplishments and may even wonder, ‘Why can he catch up
faster?’ ”

Lastborns also learn to use their role as the baby to manipulate
others in order to get their way. “They’re the least likely to be
disciplined,” Dr. Lerman notes. Parents often coddle the littlest when
it comes to chores and rules, failing to hold them to the same standards
as their sibs.

Necessary nurturing: The long-term result of too
much babying could be an adult who is dependent on others and unprepared
for the world. So don’t underestimate your child. Youngests are masters
at getting out of chores and are often seen as “too little” to
participate. But even a 2-year-old can manage tasks like putting away
toys, so be sure she has responsibilities.

The middle oneFamous middle children: Anne Hathaway, Joe Jonas, Owen Wilson Innate strengths: Middleborns are go-with-the-flow
types; once a younger sibling arrives, they must learn how to constantly
negotiate and compromise in order to “fit in” with everyone. Not
surprisingly, Dr. Sulloway notes, mid kids score higher in agreeableness
than both their older and younger sibs.

Because they receive less attention at home, middletons tend to forge
stronger bonds with friends and be less tethered to their family than
their brothers and sisters. “They’re usually the first of their siblings
to take a trip with another family or to want to sleep at a friend’s
house,” says Linda Dunlap, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Marist
College, in Poughkeepsie, NY.

Common challenges: Middle kids once lived as the
baby of the family, until they were dethroned by a new sibling.
Unfortunately, they’re often acutely aware that they don’t get as much
parental attention as their “trailblazing” older sibling or the beloved
youngest, and they feel like their needs and wants are ignored. “Middle
kids are in a difficult position in a family because they think they’re
not valued,” says Dr. Maidenberg. “It’s easy for them to be left out and
get lost in the shuffle.” And there is some validity to their
complaint. A survey by The BabyWebsite.com, a British parenting
resource, found that a third of parents with three children admit to
giving their middle child far less attention than they give their other
two.

Necessary nurturing: Find small ways to put your
middleton in the spotlight. The biggest complaint among middle children
is that they aren’t “heard” within the family. But making simple
gestures — like letting her choose the restaurant or the movie that
everyone goes to — can mean the world to her. “A lot of the time, middle
children end up deferring to the oldest’s wants and the youngest’s
needs,” Dr. Maidenberg says. So do what you can to make her feel
empowered.

Special orderAll in one: You’ve probably heard that “lonely
onlies” grow up selfish and socially inept. Not true, says Dr. Frank
Sulloway: “Only kids learn people skills from their parents and peers.”
In fact, most only children turn out to be movers and shakers with
similar traits to firstborns: They’re ambitious and articulate. And
since they spend so much time with their parents, they’re comfortable
interacting with adults. The downside: Onlies may have difficulty
relating to kids their own age. “So make sure your child spends time
with his peers from early on,” says Dr. Michelle Maidenberg. Sign him up
for playgroups, sports teams, and other organized activities — so he’s
guaranteed a lot of kid time.

Double happiness: Even if they have other siblings,
twins (and other multiples) generally grow up as an entity unto
themselves — because that’s how others see them, says Dr. Kevin Lerman.
The firstborn twin typically acts as the older child in the twosome,
while the secondborn will have traits of a younger sib. Outside of their
relationship, however, they often get lumped together as “the twins.”
This can be a source of frustration when twins get older and each seeks
to carve out an individual identity. So encourage your duo to develop
their own passions. While they might prefer to do things together, it’s
important for each kid to establish his or her own interests and
personality.

It was in the late 1950s that British scientists
Robert Edwards first came to realize the potential of IVF (In Vitro
Fertilization) as a treatment for infertility.

The keen biologist knew from the work of others that it was
possible to take an egg from an animal, like a mouse or a rabbit, and
fertilize it with sperm in a test tube.

Armed with this knowledge, Edwards made it his mission to find out if the same could be done using human eggs.

Some 30 years later, his dream was realized with the birth of the world's first human test-tube baby in 1978. Since then nearly four million babies have been born using
the technology that takes a mature egg from a woman's ovary and mixes it
with sperm in the lab before implanting it into the womb. But the journey to get to where we are today was not just long, but incredibly difficult.

First came the problem of getting the basic science to work in humans. Edwards struggled for years to find the ideal conditions to get his test-tube fertilization to work.

In 1969, his efforts paid off when, for the first time, a human egg was fertilized in a test tube.

In spite of this success, a major problem remained. The fertilized egg did not develop beyond a single cell
division. Edwards suspected that eggs that had matured in the ovaries
before they were removed for IVF would function better, and looked at
how to harvest such eggs in a safe way.

He teamed up with gynecologist Patrick Steptoe and together
they developed a technique that would, eventually, lead to the modern
IVF used today.

But despite promising early studies, the pair hit another
setback - a lack of financial backing to move their pioneering work on. After being rejected funding from the Medical Research Council, the team were forced to find a private donation.

Even with this secured, they faced another problem. Their research had
become the topic of a lively ethical debate, with several religious
leaders, ethicists, and scientists demanding that the project be
stopped.

Rather than shy away from the issue, Edwards
tackled it head-on and created an ethics committee for IVF at the Bourn
Hall Clinic he then set up with Steptoe in Cambridge.

Looking back at this time he said: "The most important thing in life is having a child.
"Nothing is more special than a child.
"Steptoe and I were deeply affected by the desperation felt by couples who so wanted to have children.
"We had a lot of critics but we fought like hell for our patients."
The pair got back to work and in the early 1970s they started to transfer their early IVF embryos back into women.

After more than 100 attempts that all led to short-lived
pregnancies, they tweaked their design and in 1978, they offered their
new treatment to a couple called Lesley and John Brown who came to the
clinic after nine years of failed attempts to have a child.
Nine months later, a healthy baby, Louise Joy Brown, was born
through Caesarian section after a full-term pregnancy, on 25 July,
1978.

IVF had moved from vision to reality and a new era in medicine had begun.
Edwards and Steptoe continued working together at their clinic
- the world's first IVF centre - teaching other doctors how to carry
out the procedure. By 1986, 1,000 children had already been born following IVF
at Bourn Hall, representing about half of all children born after IVF in
the world at that time. The pair worked together until Steptoe died in 1988. Edwards then continued as head of research until his retirement.
Their achievements attracted many other researchers to the
field of fertility medicine which has led to rapid technical
development.

IVF has now been joined by other revolutionary fertility
treatments like intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), which makes it
possible to also to treat many categories of male infertility, and
preimplantation genetic diagnostics (PGD), which helps reduce the risk
that parents can pass a severe genetic disorder or a chromosomal
abnormality to their children.

And today, 2-3% of all newborns in many countries are conceived with the help of IVF.